Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Skate 2 (14h) - The demo was great, and a poor day at work led to some retail therapy. I've been reading some reviews about it not being as true as the original, but having not played the original that point is moot on me. What I'm really pleased about is the openness of the city for just tooling around. I really like the ability to create your own spots too, although it took a while to find the option to do so because it was off the select button, not the start button like all the other menu options (why have 2 menus??).

The other feature I was really keen on was making your own video. It's certainly easy to get in and have rudimentary controls over the last 30 seconds of play, but it doesn't want to save the clip as just the in and out segments but to whole 30secs. I'm guessing it's as bug. Uploading the video is REALLY time consuming though, with each frame taking ~1 sec. Thinking about it, that might just be the upload speed, not the compression. Anything more than 3 seconds worth of film is going to need a break before returning though. Here's my test upload; a backbreaker in the first 1/2 hr of the game.

I also like the scars and torn clothes. Admittedly some of the falls I've taken should have had me hospitalized, but at least it's something to draw your attention to the pounding you're putting your virtual body through.

I still suck pretty hard at doing exactly the trick I want (as SKATE challenges point out) but a lot of the missions are pretty lenient in letting you do a certain category of moves instead of a specific move. One thing is for certain though, doing the same run over and over for hours doesn't get boring when you're not quite sure how it's going to turn out.

Civ4:BtS Fall from Heaven II mod (12h) - Ben played a bit of Civ Revolution demo and confessed to not having played any of the Civ series. We'll need to recify that next weekend. Talking about Civ made me want fire it up again, but it hadn't made the transfer from my old system. After some fooling around it looked easier to just boot up the old HDD and play off that rather than reinstall or fix the missing files. It also gave me an excuse to try out Fall from heaven II after an excellent reverse interview from one of the creators of Civ4.

FfH plays well. It feels more intense and engaging with a myriad of new things to try, but I've dominated the map already so I might need to replay to get more out of it. Yes, Barbarians are dangerous, bu so are the wildlife (8str elephants?? elite bears??). It certainly removes the notion that you can fast-expand with little defenses, one of my staple tactics.

Civilization revolution Demo (6h) - I can't believe the length of the demo, it feels like a full game. On a repeat though it turned out to be the same map, so that's definitely limiting factor. Played through the second time to see if I could wipe them all out before the turn timer was up and I almost made it.

Diplomacy (5h) - The main game for the LAN with Ben. The interface is a little clunky, especially extended negotiations. it made me pine for the efficiency of speech. We played 2 games as allies and swept the floor with the hard AI, so it's probably not going to be a good LAN game either.